European Commissioner: There’s No Need for Sputnik V in the EU

Thierry Breton is confident that Europe will be able to achieve collective immunity to coronavirus by July 14. Sputnik V's producers have accused the European Commissioner of bias. The European Union does not need a Russian vaccine against the Gam-Covid-Vac (Sputnik V) coronavirus. This opinion was expressed on Sunday, March 21, on the air of the TF1 TV channel by the European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton. “We do not need Sputnik V at all,” he said. “Today, we certainly have the opportunity to deliver 300-350 million doses by the end of June, which means that by July 14 we will be able to achieve “herd immunity in Europe,” Breton said. In France, July 14 - the date the European Commissioner has chosen as a landmark - is a national holiday, it is Bastille Day. EU Commissioner: priority should be given to European products In addition, the EU Commissioner expressed confidence that the EU should help Moscow in the production of vaccines if necessary, but priority, in his opinion, should be given to European products. Breton added that the doses required for vaccinations are "already in place, now people must accept" the fact of vaccination and that "we have the logistics." Sputnik V manufacturers accused the European Commissioner of bias On Twitter, the manufacturers of the Russian drug have already responded to the comment of the European official: "Commissioner Thierry Breton is clearly biased towards the Sputnik V vaccine only because it is Russian." He ignores "that this vaccine has better efficacy and better safety record than some other vaccines approved in the EU," reads a post on the microblogging network. Earlier, in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung newspaper Kirill Dmitriev, Director General of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) expressed the opinion that the first Russian vaccine against coronavirus will not receive quick approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Sputnik V: European regulator is reviewing vaccine The Sputnik V vaccine, got developed by the N. Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology and was urgently registered by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation in August 2020 - the first in the world, immediately after completing the second phase of clinical trials, in which only 76 volunteers under the age of 60 participated ... The third phase with the participation of 40 thousand volunteers took place afterwards. On February 2, the authoritative scientific journal The Lancet published the preliminary results of the third phase of research on "Sputnik V", in which 19,866 people took part. The publication says that the Russian Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Academician Gamaleya, based on tests, concluded that after receiving the second dose, the effectiveness of the drug was 91.6 percent. In early March, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) began a process of gradual examination of Sputnik V for subsequent registration. The decision of the Committee to start the procedure for a sequential examination of the Russian vaccine was made taking into account the results of laboratory and clinical trials of the drug in adults.